


we'll keep on growing like ivy.

by avatraang



Series: the atla uni au where everything is different but also nothing is, all at once [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:07:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27831262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avatraang/pseuds/avatraang
Summary: Looking back, they were always at least a little bit inevitable.[Mai/Aang. Maiaang. Oneshot. University AU, where nothing is different but also everything is different, all at once.]
Relationships: Aang/Mai (Avatar)
Series: the atla uni au where everything is different but also nothing is, all at once [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2037001
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	we'll keep on growing like ivy.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleQueenTrashMouth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleQueenTrashMouth/gifts).



> The creative process for this was simple: I needed a break from the massive Tokka fic I’m currently writing, I was tired of writing poetry based on real world events, and I was listening to Bad Bunny. Naturally, because I recently read a fic that ruined my life (if you're here you've absolutely already read it, "you steal the air out of my lungs" is a life ruiner in the best way and absolutely inspired this), this Mai/Aang oneshot emerged. Purely to satisfy my own carnal desires. Also, I'm well aware this shit is nowhere near my best work, but I needed to get it out and I didn't want it to collect dust because I actually do like these two and also the alternate universe I accidentally built here is intriguing to me.
> 
> Also also, as mentioned, I belatedly realized I had started an AU that I actually was really digging, so this is the first of a series of unrelated oneshots, all set in a world where nothing is different but also everything is different, all at once.
> 
> This fic is gifted to the og of mai/aang... truly an inspiration, an obsession, we stan the writer of "you steal the air out of my lungs." end of discussion. heavily influenced by them and their pure divinity. title of this fic is taken from "ivy" by mabel, so check that out if there's some far flung chance you're digging this fic.

> _"You can't keep your feet on the ground_   
>  _Your head's in the sky, just so you can look down_   
>  _But you never notice and I keep on hoping_   
>  _I get what the joke is."_

**-mabel, _ivy._**

* * *

The first time Mai meets him, she thinks perhaps she’s dreaming. It’s late, around one in the morning, and she’s walking back from the library on campus with one hand on her umbrella and the other on the knife tucked into her sleeve. Ba Sing Se University isn’t particular dangerous, but Mai is a foreigner in these parts, and it’s better safe than sorry. She sees him on the roof of the cafeteria, feet dangling, one hand raised above him as he bends the rain away. She watches the way it bounces off his hand, the other one busy holding an ice cream cone. It's a strange sight -almost like something out of a fever dream. There’s a yellow beanie on his head, which, if he was trying to conceal himself, is a pretty awful attempt at it.

He must feel Mai looking at him, because he looks down at her quite suddenly. His eyes are a cool grey tone, but even from as far away as they are, he meets her gaze so intensely that Mai thinks this man is more dangerous than he seems. Slowly, deliberately, he waves the hand that’s busy bending the rain away. “Want some ice cream?” He calls to her, startling the beat of the rain. It’s strange. Mai is sure he’s more dangerous than he looks, but his voice is like air itself. All encompassing, surrounding every crevice of space. It tumbles down from the sky, a zephyr that pushes her to trust him. His feet are still swinging against the building, as if he can’t keep them on the ground.

Mai considers whether she wants ice cream or not. It’s been a while since she’s snuck into the cafeteria, and even longer since she’s said fuck it about her personal safety. “Sure.” She calls up to him, and in the next moment he’s standing. He hesitates for a hairsbreadth of a moment, before taking the rain water around him and freezing it in a downward motion of his arms. Sliding down it, he’s on his feet and in front of her before she knows it.

“I’m Aang.” He says, extending a gloved hand out to her. Mai doesn’t take it, but he doesn’t seem to care either way. “Let’s go.” Following him, they walk around to the back of the building and Aang pulls on the doors of the rear entrance. It opens, just as Mai knew it would – the staff consistently forgets to lock these. Shaking the rain off her umbrella, Mai enters the building first, making a beeline to the soft serve ice cream machine that’s nestled at the end of the buffet line. Grabbing a cone, she gets herself some chocolate ice cream. Aang gets himself a refill, half vanilla half chocolate.

As they step outside, Aang asks her if she’s heading back to her dorm. “My apartment,” Mai corrects. “Yeah.”

Aang nods, “Want some company?”

Again, the urge to trust him is strangely strong, and her gut has never been wrong before. She finds herself nodding. Because Aang is bending the rain away from them both, she doesn’t bother to get her umbrella out again. Just enjoys the view of the water, and the way it bounces off of them. “Mai.” She supplies. “My name is Mai.”

He gives her a smile, so charming and bright in the darkness that Mai wants to look away. “That’s a beautiful name.” It isn’t the first time she’s heard that, but it is the first time in a long time that it’s been said with such sincerity. Mai can’t help wonder if he’s always so sincere. “What are you studying, Mai?” Her name rolls off his tongue like he’s known her forever.

“Creative writing.” Mai says. “And history.” Engaging her in a conversation on literature, Mai loses herself in her ice cream and conversation with this virtual stranger. By the time they reach her apartment, Mai finds he’s coaxed a smile out of her. “I’ll see you around.” Mai says, and though he is tempting, Mai doesn’t offer him her number.

He doesn’t ask. With another charming smile, he says, “You’re beautiful company. Be safe out there.” And then, as quickly as she met him, Aang is gone. It’s strange; all Mai does is blink and he’s disappeared. If she hadn’t seen him waterbending, Mai would think him an airbender.

That’s the first time.

* * *

The second time they meet, she catches him airbending. It’s a beautiful autumn morning, a month and a half later, and Aang thinks about the pretty stranger more often than he’d care to admit. _Mai,_ he’ll say to himself, late at night when only he is awake.

That particular morning, Aang is deeply focused on his forms. He’s on the final, most advanced form that all airbending masters learn right before their exam. It’s long, exhaustive, but beautiful. He’s in the middle of a particularly powerful blast of air, creating a cyclone around him. Bringing his arms up smoothly, the cyclone breaks, wind disappearing as quickly as he’d formed it. The grass shakes as the air moves it, trees rustle around him, and Aang knows he’s being watched even before he turns around. It’s both a blessing and a curse that airbenders, at their peak, can feel every breath taken, every interruption to the way the wind flows.

Turning, Aang sees her. Mai’s hair is in a tired braid, resting on her shoulder. Long, dark sleeves cover her body, and Aang gets the sense she runs cold. Her eyes, as cutting and as amber as he remembered, are watching him in open disbelief. “You’re an airbender.”

The disbelief is common. Aang’s people are hard to pin down, difficult to track, and few and far in between. Since the Fire Nation tried to purge the world of airbenders, three generations ago, there’s also less of them. Mai’s reaction isn’t rare. It isn’t even uncommon. The airbenders didn’t come out of official hiding until-

“the _Avatar.”_ Mai quickly pieces together the fact that he can both airbend and waterbend. She stares. “You’re the Avatar.” Her eyes give his body a once over, looking at the tattoos that run up and down it. “I let the Avatar walk me home.”

The airbenders didn’t come out of official hiding until Aang had emerged as Avatar, around ten years ago.

Waving, Aang throws a sheepish smile Mai’s way. “I was hoping we’d see each other again. Want to get some tea?” He watches Mai get a hold of herself. She pats her hands against her jeans, looks down, and when she looks up, the indifferent look that she’d had when they met is back on her face. Aang gets the sense that’s her resting face.

“Now?” Mai asks. That hard amber of her eyes is tempting him again, calling him.

Aang nods. “I was done with my katas, anyway.” Grabbing his shirt and his waterbottle from where he’d placed them under a tree, Aang pulls it over his head and chugs all the water he had left.

“Spirits.” Mai comments, “If you drink any faster you’re gonna choke.”

Aang laughs, “You’ll save me.”

“Bold of you to assume I know how to do that.”

He raises his brows at her. “Bold of you to assume I, a waterbender _and_ an airbender, would choke in the first place.”

The corners of her mouth turn up, a small smile that meets her eyes. The amber melts, letting him in. Aang loses himself in them. The walk to the tea shop on campus isn’t long, but they walk slowly, taking their time. Once there, they take a good hour to finish their food and tea. And if it’s because they want to get to know each other, well, so be it.

* * *

Aang learns a lot about Mai Makioka in the months that pass. She becomes one of his most cherished friends, a true confidant. Every laugh he manages to get out of her is like a good luck charm, one he tucks away and remembers on nights when his duties seem to mount against him. She’s in grad school, and he’s in his senior year of undergrad, but they manage to study together when they can, anyways.

Aang learns that Mai’s favorite color is, surprisingly, pastel pink. He learns she wants to get a sleeve tatted on her right arm, and has already started by getting cherry blossom trees on her shoulder, with the trunks of the trees made out to be sais. She’s got a manuscript that she hopes to publish soon, but if not, the PhD she wants to get in history should set her up nicely. She comes from a long line of Fire Nation nobles, dated the current Firelord for a bit, loves peaches, hates vanilla ice cream, has been throwing knives since before she could walk, goes running every morning, and would rather be asleep all the time than do anything else, ever.

Mai earns her place in his life. She doesn’t beat around the bush, never sugarcoating anything from him. But she also recognizes that he’s human. Just because Aang has a heavy burden on his shoulders, doesn’t mean he isn’t a man. Mai sees him clearer than most people do, and perhaps that’s why Aang is so hesitant to call to her attention the komodo rhino in the room.

Tonight they’re at his apartment. His roommate, Toph, is out for the night doing Spirits know what. Mai is sitting crosslegged, editing her manuscript. Aang is supposed to be doing homework for his theology class, but instead he’s watching her. The way she chews on her bottom lip as she concentrates. The way her hair tumbles down her shoulders, long, straight, sleek. The way her eyes run across the page she’s editing, fingers flying to fix whatever mistake she’s caught this time. “What is it?” Mai asks, and then she’s looking at him, her eyes bright against the dark lighting of the living room.

In moments like these, when it’s just the two of them and everything is quiet, Aang considers telling her. That she hasn’t left his thoughts since they met, that he likes her more than he’d care to admit. But then he thinks that there’s no way she liked him back. If she did, he would have picked up on it by now. Right? “Nothing,” Aang says, “Just admiring the view.” He smiles at her, turning away.

If he hadn’t looked away so quickly, perhaps he would have seen the blush that settled on Mai’s cheeks, or how she made to reach out a hand towards him before hesitantly withdrawing it.

“You want some pizza tonight?” Mai asks a few minutes later, rubbing her belly. As if on cue, it growls.

“Feeling indulgent, hm?” Aang gives her a teasing smile, glad (and also a little disappointed) the moment from before is already forgotten.

Mai shrugs. “What can I say? I can resist everything except temptation.” And if the rare shit-eating grin she sends his way makes his stomach flip, well, only he has to know.

* * *

This is how Mai knows she’s fucked:

She’s on the phone with her childhood friend, dancing around the kitchen making herself dinner. Her friend, one Ty Lee Chea, made the dumbest joke Mai had heard that week. “You’re so stupid, Aan- _Ty Lee.”_ She catches herself as quickly as the words almost tumbled out, but the fact that his name slipped from her lips so easily leaves Mai standing in the middle of the kitchen, breath caught in her throat.

Memories from the last few months are vivid in her mind, unable to be forgotten. His laugh, his voice, like air personified. His movements, as if he can’t keep himself on the ground. His mind, his sense of humor, him. All consuming, memorable, the reason that waking was now as sweet to Mai as sleeping.

“Mai?” Ty Lee’s voice rings through the phone, tinny and far away. “Mai?”

Mai wants to slap herself. What an idiot, for not just falling in love with the Avatar, but not noticing til it was too late.

“Yeah,” She says, her voice shaking in a way that's only detectable by her. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry.”

* * *

Aang is painfully aware that he likes Mai, and even more painfully aware of the moment he falls in love with her. It’s one of those days where you can tell that autumn is fading and winter is fast approaching. The bite in the air is potent, and if Aang weren’t always (quite literally) in his element, he thinks he might feel cold.

Mai, for example, is freezing. Still, upon hearing Aang talk about his beloved spirit guide for the millionth time, she’d asked to meet him. So here they were, Aang bringing Mai to the sole reason he’d decided to live in his specific apartment complex: stables big enough to house Appa.

Her body is shaking like a leaf at the slightest breeze. Without fanfare, Aang slips his jacket off his shoulders and drapes it around Mai. He knows it’s bad when she makes no objections, just puts it on over her own jacket and zips it up. Cresting the hill where the stables are held, Aang leads the way to Appa’s. As per usual, the door is open, giving him the option of coming and going as he pleases. Five years ago Aang wouldn’t feel right about letting Appa out alone, but things are changing. By now the world has remembered just who protects the sky bisons, and their being hunted is slowly coming to a halt.

Appa cracks an eye open, and upon seeing who it is, he rights himself, lumbering forward to greet Aang. Aang extends his arms and Appa runs into them, as if Aang could possibly hug the massive bison in his entirety. “Hey, buddy!” Aang laughs, burrowing his face into Appa’s fur. Pulling away, he motions to Mai. “This is Mai. She’s heard a lot about you and wanted to meet you.”

Suddenly shy, Mai delicately extends her hand out to Appa. “Hi.” She says, voice quiet against the wind. Appa stares, clearly passing judgment over her, before sniffing her hand and then nuzzling his nose into it. Mai lets out a noise of surprise, before letting out a laugh that Aang has only heard when it’s just the two of them. When Appa absolutely destroys Mai’s clothes by covering her in a slobbery kiss, there’s only minimal annoyance. The rest of her just looks relieved. They feed Appa, spend a little more time with him, and after a couple hours make their way back down to the apartment.

After she changes, Mai spends the rest of the day quizzing him about sky bisons and how to care for them. As she asks questions and he answers, Aang is vividly, painfully, and utterly aware that he has fallen head over heels in love with this woman who can’t get enough of his spirit guide.

* * *

It’s his roommate, one Toph Beifong, who finally forces their hands. A lazy Sunday evening, Toph emerges from her room to grab some food when she senses them on the couch, watching a movie. “What movie is that?” She asks, head nodding towards the television.

“Spirit Tremors.” Aang supplies, taking his eyes off the screen to watch her heat up some ramen.

Toph makes a face, “I heard it isn’t even that good.”

“It isn’t.” Mai agrees, removing her feet from Aang’s lap to stand up and stretch.

“Then why are you two acting like it is?” Toph asks, confused. She sticks the ramen in the microwave and pushes the button she knows will heat it up for a minute.

Aang feels his entire body freeze, already anticipating what Toph is talking about. Before he can find a way to change the way the conversation, Mai asks, “What? We’re not.” He chances a glance at her, and looks away quickly after he sees her midriff is exposed due to her stretching.

Toph snorts. “No offense, Mai, but your heartbeats tell otherwise. Both of you are totally in… to…” Whether it’s because she senses Aang’s erratic heartbeat or because Toph’s pieced it together herself, she slows. “It.” She finishes. And then, quite suddenly, Toph bursts into loud laughter. “Oh, holy _shit,_ this is rich.”

“What’s going on?” Mai asks, looking from Aang to Toph like they’ve both grown two heads. Sitting back down on the couch, Mai waits impatiently for an answer.

“You not gonna tell her, Twinkletoes?” Before Aang can even open his mouth, Toph waves him away. _Typical._ “Okay, okay, I got this. You know how I can see, right, Mai? Seismic sense and all that?”

“Yeah.” Mai’s tone is cautious.

Toph takes the ramen out of the microwave. “Yeah, well, I can also sense heartbeats. Makes me good at telling what people are feeling. And if it’s not the movie that the both of you are into, well...” She grins, a wicked thing that dips the whole room closer to chaos. “Have I got some news for the both of you. Congratulations!” Toph grabs a spoon and heads off back towards her room, “Lucky for you two, the feeling is mutual.” The door to her room slams with a finality, leaving Aang and Mai to the awful movie in the background and their feelings unceremoniously tossed in their faces.

And then. “Wait.” Aang’s voice startles even himself. “You like me back?” It hits him all at once, and a dopey grin works its way onto his face.

Mai looks at him incredulously. _“You_ like _me?”_

Aang fixes her with a gaze that leaves no room for argument. “How could I not?” He asks, as if it’s the most simple thing in the world. And then Mai is looking at him, with those amber eyes soft and inviting, with a look that he’d never thought he’d get from her. Pure, unfiltered, _want._

When Aang kisses her, it’s with feeling, to make up for the time he’s already lost in not letting her know just how consumed he is by her.

(Mai’s hands may or may not be on the way to undoing his pants when Toph interrupts them, loudly yelling from her room to take their lovemaking to Mai’s place.)

* * *

When Mai first met Aang, she thought she might have been dreaming.

Now, many months later, as he trails kisses down her body, grey eyes clouded by want and adoration, Mai has to press his head against her body to assure herself that this is no dream. It’s early morning on a mundane Monday, and as he lifts his head from between her shaking legs, just after making her come undone, Mai kisses him, simply because she can. Looking back, they were always at least a little bit inevitable. They grew together like ivy the moment that he asked her if she wanted ice cream.

As he slips inside her and whispers beautiful words into her ear, Mai thinks, quite beatifically, that no matter what they do, they’ll keep growing like ivy. That’s why when Aang kisses her and whispers, “I love you.” It doesn’t startle her that he says it simply, honestly, as if he’s been saying it his entire life.

She is a part of him just as much as he is of her. “I love you.” Mai whispers back, and it doesn’t take Aang being the Avatar to know that she means it.

* * *

> _"I’m a part of you, because you're a part of me_   
>  _Yeah, no matter what we do, babe_   
>  _We'll keep on growing like Ivy, growing like Ivy."_

**-mabel, _ivy._**

**Author's Note:**

> in my defense i never said this was good, or even near my best work. either way, thanks for making it til the end! mai/aang is the rarepair i never knew i needed, but now i'm officially obsessed. it has taken over my life and i am, to put it mildly, their bitch. the scene where aang realizes he likes mai because of her being soft for appa is a trope that LittleQueenTrashMouth came up with and that i absolutely cannot take credit for. everything else was all me, but not that part. it just lives rent free in my head and i accept the headcanon for these AUs readily lol. 
> 
> hope this wasn't a complete waste of a read for you! as per usual, you can find me on tumblr at [avatraang](https://avatraang.tumblr.com/) stay safe out there dear reader <3


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